Edit: I wanted to apologize after reading some of the comments. You raise some legitimate points, I realize that there is a subtle malthusian element to this chart and some of you feel like a burden already. Furthermore, you raise a good point about corporate pollution, oil companies, and how their footprint is much greater than average plebs like us.
That’s 100% valid and I don’t disagree with you at all. My “compromise” I guess would be that continue to apply pressure and protest against large corporations, but in terms of ourselves, just pick a few things you can cut down on yourself, it does not have to be everything on this list.
For example, I really prefer having animal products in my diet, but I am willing to live in a small apartment , car-free, and not go on vacation much in my adulthood. In the same way, you guys can pick what you are comfortable with in reducing and what you do not want to compromise on.
All of us have different standards of living and we are flexible on some things, and some things we are not flexible. That is alright, just consider changing what you are comfortable with, but please do not think you are a burden. Your presence and your life is valuable to me. I don’t like to demoralize people.
I wonder how many of the large meat and dairy companies will still be such huge polluters if everyone ate a vegetarian or even vegan diet? I wonder how much less pollution fast fashion producers create if everyone prioritised high quality clothing that lasts a long time over cheap clothing that doesn’t even last a year? I wonder how much pollution oil and gas producers would make if everyone decided to stop using gas boilers and petrol cars and taking long polluting flights?
To argue that we can’t affect the amount of pollution going in to the world makes someone else less likely to try. If we all do our part the companies are forced to change, not via laws and regulations, but by the fact that they will lose money if they don’t. The fact of the matter is, most people say they care about climate change and the environment, but when you ask them to give up their highly polluting luxuries, they suddenly don’t care as much. And obviously there are exceptions to this, you and I for example probably care about the environment and actually act in a way as to reduce our own footprints. But the average person does not care enough.
Average people are sometimes not going to care. Changing laws to force businesses not to pollute is something that can have a major impact.
We can teach people better habits over decades and generations but if we don’t stop dumping tons of oil into the oceans or CO2 in the air we are not going to be around to teach anyone anything.
This is true, in reality it’s what has to be done, and it will be against the will of the people, it would be undemocratic and would require agreement on both sides of the political spectrum. When one side makes unpopular but necessary change to regulation to reduce our environmental impact, you have to pray that come next election, your hard work isn’t immediately undone after almost certainly being voted out.
People generally aren’t unreasonable, adding additional regulation on say oil producers is fine for people in rich nations, people who can afford (begrudgingly) to pay more money for their petrol. But the only way to make such a change fair is to increase the amount of aid sent to lower income countries. When the price per litre of petrol in Kenya is about €1.2 and the average income is €2000 it becomes unfair to give them higher prices for necessities without also loading these developing nations with significant amounts of financial aid. Oil and gas is the ladder which developed nations climbed to become who they are to day, and it is the same ladder which we need to kick down behind us to prevent or limit climate change. We can not leave those behind us ladderless however. We must use money to help them reach our levels.
And money comes from taxes, and taxes come from people, and when people in these developed nations look at the state of their country, large expenses, large mortgage payments or rent, increased price of fuel increased price of meat and dairy. Most will not understand why it is necessary to also start sending hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer countries. You either need to educate the general population to a level where they can understand what must be done to save ourselves. Or you must do it against the will of the people, undemocratically.
I understand that this comment may be slightly irrelevant but it came to my mind and I thought it had to be voiced. If you can see any way in which the logic is not sound in my comment here please let me know and correct me. Thank you in advance.
Can you point to examples where this has worked to change mass social behaviour where it hasn’t been underpinned by laws or regulation or taken multiple generations to achieve?
We need change now. Targeting companies is the only way to change things now - not some years down the line when eventually we get every common person to understand that taking on hardship voluntarily is prevents collective hardship even more years down the line.
All I can buy here where I live is disposable fast fashion. Quality clothing is not readily available.
Also, quality stuff I could buy from the internet (and gamble wether it would fit me or not) is way, way too expensive for someone living in a lower income country. I just can’t afford 500+€ boots or 200€ shirt that may or may not last for 5+ years.
Which brings another point—you can never know if the products a company makes today are the same they made a few years ago that got praised for their quality. Enshittification is everywhere.
You can get high quality clothing for much much less than these prices you have said. Solovair boots are about €200, and they’re still pretty expensive for high quality stuff. €80 for a high quality charles tyrwhitt shirt. It doesn’t even need to be specifically branded as high quality, but when you are browsing in whatever store, check the thickness of the teeshirt or shirt, check the strength of the trousers, think about how easy it would be to repair if it broke. Last year I bought a thick plain teeshirt from H&M for €8, I have worn it a lot and it shows no signs of wear. You just have to be conscious about what it is you are buying.
If fast fashion wasn’t an option would you be naked? No, your country would have it’s own cottage industry of clothing much like used to exist before fast fashion flooded your markets. You get rid of fast fashion and now you have local quality back.
Lets assume one dairy farm serves 2000 people. In order to limit the emissions from the farm, you must either regulate the farm, or convince 2000 people to give up dairy.
In your time as an advocate, how many people have you convinced to give up dairy? How long would it take to convice all dairy consumers?
This is true, but when 2000 people find out that the price of milk and cheese they love so dearly is going to have to go up, a perhaps decently sized portion of those 2000 would protest and fight to stop the regulation that causes them to have to change their diet. It’s incredibly difficult to change the way people think in a democracy. The only democratic way to make the change we need is to already have more than 50% of the people on board with the proposed regulation.
Im also gonna add that meat products are often treated more favorably by governments, making them cheaper than vegetarian options, despite being more resource intensive. Not that I think governments shouldn’t help light industry mind you.